Plan Would Give Preference To Small, Local Businesses

Small and local businesses would get a leg up in competing for Palm Beach County's business, under new rules county commissioners tentatively approved on Tuesday.

But a decade-long preference specifically for minority- and women-owned firms is disappearing -- with or without the new rules, set for final votes Sept. 10.

Under standards set by the U.S. Supreme Court, governments must continue to justify the need for such programs. Minority and female companies got 13 percent of the money spent on county contracts in 1999-2000, compared with 2 percent in 1988-89 -- enough of a success rate, county lawyers said, to make it hard to defend keeping the preferences.

Commissioners want to replace them with a broader preference for small businesses -- defined as firms with up to 30 full-time workers and a certain volume of business, varying by industry.

The new plan calls for the county to pick the lowest bidder who pledges to steer at least 15 percent of the work to small businesses -- unless there's another bid priced more than 10 percent lower. The price difference changes to a formula for contracts greater than $1 million.

County small-business assistance director Charles Collins II expects the new rules still will steer work to women- and minority-owned companies, many of which are small. But his staff would keep monitoring how much county work goes to minority and female firms, and Collins said he may suggest reconsidering the preference system if the percentage drops.

Commissioners also tentatively approved a new preference for local businesses, defined as firms with permanent locations in Palm Beach County. The idea has stalled in the past, but it gained new momentum amid the economic worries that followed Sept. 11.

The plan would favor a Palm Beach County business if the bids' price difference was no more than 5 percent in most cases. The county would apply the proposal to Miami-Dade and Broward counties because those counties also have local-preference laws. But Martin County does not have a local-preference law and companies from there would not be subject to the preference rule.

Local builders have consistently opposed local preferences, saying they could lose business elsewhere if other communities did the same.